


silhouette

by acemindpalace



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Angst, Doctor Whump, F/M, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-29
Updated: 2013-06-29
Packaged: 2017-12-16 14:26:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/863048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acemindpalace/pseuds/acemindpalace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A teardrop.A trickle.A flood within two huge pools of green. Just a sad old man with a box. </p>
<p>An angsty one shot based on the song Silhouette by Owl City.</p>
            </blockquote>





	silhouette

A teardrop.

A trickle.

A flood within two huge pools of green.

They're gone. Rory the Roman, and Amelia Pond. The girl who waited, and the boy who waited have now become the couple who are waiting. They're waiting for him to swoop in to their rescue as he always does. Waiting for him to snap his fingers at the universe and fix things. Except this time he can't. This time, just like so many times before, he's too late.

They shall be forever encased in stone. Eyes locked on the place he had been standing. They would remain that way until the stone eroded. Until they were nothing but unrecognisable pieces of rock. Until that rock became nothing but ash. Until that ash floated away into the wind, whispering the names of the most important humans that have ever lived.

He had feared that this would happen. Sometimes he had woken up from his unrestful sleep and the fear had been so painful, and had hurt just so much. That fear had often compelled him to visit them. In fact that fear was what had brought him to the Pond's doorstep each and every time. And They might have complained about his incredibly bad timing, especially if it was in the middle of the night and he burst into their room despite ' the bedroom rule', but that hadn't stopped the smile spreading across his face from seeing that they were alive and well. His fear had been quelled in those moments but it had never gone away, not entirely.

Now as he collapsed onto the dirt encrusted ground he knows he had been right to fear loosing them. And, sobbing relentlessly as a fresh wave of grief flows through his old wounds in his hearts, he realises that the ponds were always heading for this, and that there was so much that he could have done to stop it.

He could have left Amelia from the moment he went back in his blue box. He could have just turned his back on the little girl sat on the suitcase. But those eyes of hers. Those curious eyes that reminded him so much of his eyes as a child. They had carried all that wonder, and so much love for the stars. Perhaps that's why he had promised Amelia that she could travel with him. He had seen himself in her. She had carried the same fire that had fizzled out within him a long time ago.

There was barely a flicker of the flame he had started out with, all those years ago when he has run away in his TARDIS.It seemed however those small flames were as destructive as they always were. Always burning those near him, suffocating them with their smoke, and pulling them under an illusion, blinding those he loved and cared deeply about from the truth.

Just as a child sees a fire on a cold winters night when they're camping. His companions see him as warm and inviting, but then the child gets too close and they burn their finger tips. Rory and Amy hadn't simply been burnt ... they had gone up in flames.

Rory had been so brave in his last moments. He had grabbed Amy, held her so tight, and he had repeated the words to him, this isn't your fault, for what must have been a thousand times before his lips came to a standstill.

Except this was his fault. It always was. It always would be ... no, not anymore. Never again. No one would suffer another dire fate because of him.

Standing up, numb, inside and out, he ran. Back into his old, reliable, bigger on the inside box. Alone. Like he should have been all along. He took one last look back at the stone couple. The sun was setting, and he was nothing but a faded silhouette against the shimmering orange sky.

He remembers a similar orange sky. He remembers how that burnt too. He remembers how it was also all his fault. He remembers. He never stops.

He closes his eyes and thinks one simple question.

Is it over yet?

He's just a sad man with a box.

Time ticks and flies past in a blur. Time also moves far too slowly. He tries to move on, and he tries to forget but that's the one thing he can never do. The more he travels, the more he thinks. He thinks of every face that has passed through his big double doors, and then he thinks of how he let them down. He wishes that he could change the past, but there are rules about that. Rules that he could so easily break. Rules that he knew he couldn't. He sits on the edge of his TARDIS and stares at the swirling stars in the bright summer sky. He thinks of how he's probably seen each and every one of them form. He thinks about how he's also probably seen them die too.

Nothing lasts.

His people died.

His planet was destroyed.

His friends leave him. Whether they die, forget him, or meet a punishment worse than the both. They leave him. They shatter him into pieces so small he can't feel anymore.

He's sick of his past. Sick of the mistakes he's made. Sick of the time that can't be erased.

All of his life, leading to this, why?

He can't remember most of it. His life that is. Some chunks are missing. Some moments are just a jumble of chaos.

Timelords live too long...

No, he's lived too long!

He can't ever go back. He wouldn't want to anyway. Retracing his steps would be like stepping over melting ice.

Still the vile reminder of the things he has done lingers there in his mind. It's like a mountain of things piling on top of his soul, crushing him. He'd rather forget. That would be the easy option. It would give him the chance of a much needed escape.

However he knows better than to rid himself of the fire that causes him to remember. As he had grown, the fire has too. As he has lived so has it. So when it comes to the time where he, The Doctor, takes his last breath. That is when it shall die too.

Until then he will just have to sit, and hope long and hard that the mountain doesn't get any higher.

He watches as a newborn baby fight's for it's life. He watches as it screams in it's mothers arms. He hears it begging for food. It's mother can't afford food. She's dying herself. He takes the baby from her arms and promises to take good care of her.

He looks at the baby and he remembers. Melody Pond. The girl who got taken away from her parents too. The girl who was tortured and forced into killing him. The girl who grew up into River Song.

River Song.

He hadn't seen her in a long time. She probably hated him. It was his fault. all of it was! She was doomed from the moment she had been conceived. He had hurt her and had gotten her parents killed.

A tear.

A trickle.

A ocean of angst riding within the green waves of emotion.

He slinks through the night. A forgotten silhouette trying to find a home for the new life. He leaves the baby on a doorstep of an old friend. He knows she'll take care of him. She's Martha Jones, or Martha Smith as she now likes to be known.

Martha opens her door and immediately picks up the bundle. She glances up and sees him leaning against the old police box. It takes a moment for her to realise who he is, what with his new face and all, but when she does he's already gone. She shouts after him, and he listens and shudders as memories of travelling with her fill his mind. He watches on his TARDIS cameras as Micky rushes to her side to see what all the commotion was about. They instantly fall in love with the baby.

They called her Oswin. She was told of the stars and she grew up wanting to be able travel within them. and she did. She travelled so far, and in the end she met a fate far worse than she would have met if he had let nature take it's course. She became a Dalek. She sacrificed herself for him.

As he begins to type in coordinates to take him to somewhere new he asks two questions.

Is it over yet?

will I ever smile again?

He tries to move on. He tries to think of that girl trapped and so alone. But the more he tries to move on, the more he feels alone. Alone because that's the way it had to be now.

He cuts his hair. He straightens his bow tie. He pops out of his box and flutters his new sonic in the air. The cold metal bars open, and River turns around, stunned. As stunned as he feels. He doesn't know why he's here. He doesn't know why the TARDIS had taken him here today. Today of all days. On the anniversary of Rory and Amy's deaths. River rushes forwards and kisses him like a butterfly fluttering over his lips. She doesn't know. She can't know. If she knew she wouldn't want to ever see him again. He feels guilty, and knows that he should tell her, but he allows himself to indulge himself in the guilt as she continues to kiss him all over.

He asks her where she wants to go. She tells him. He breaks.

A tear.

A trickle.

She drowns in the salty droplets dripping onto her shoulder. He hugs her and she looks on at him in confusion.

That night he takes her on their last ever adventure. They dance, they laugh, they kiss. And as he presses the solid form of his sonic into her hands, and clamps his fingers over her own, as they both cry.

They cry because they both know now, this is the last time they are going to look into each others eyes and know each other.

As he shuts the door and the TARDIS materializes away he asks himself.

Is it over yet?

Will I ever love again?

He's a silhouette flitting through time. Wherever danger is he can be found. He tries to chaser the rainbows dashing the universe, but they tend to disappear before he can reach the end. He looks up at another set of stars and wonders where they will lead him now.

Till he finds out he'll walk alone.

He stands on the edge of a cliff in the middle of the fields of Trenzalore, and he's asked the first question. The oldest question in the Universe. He shakes his head, and closes his eyes. He puts one foot over the edge, and he falls. He can't do that to the universe. He can't be responsible for what the answer would bring.

He falls alone. He stares at the stars for one last time and dreams of home.

His head hits the ground below, and he enters the darkness alone.

He dies alone.

He shouldn't be surprised when he wakes up. He shouldn't be surprised when the woman he loves and Rory and Amy are staring at him from above. And he definitely shouldn't be surprised when the sky turns a brilliant shade of golden orange as two suns start to rise.

His granddaughter's next. She's smiling at him. Just smiling.

Jenny's there too, a grin thrown his way.

Every single person his heart's have ever belonged to are there.

He's no longer alone.

He doesn't have to be. Not anymore.

The stars have taken him home.


End file.
